John Bytheway:               00:01                   Welcome back to part two with Dr. Geoff Wright, 1 Samuel 8 through 16.

Hank Smith:                      00:07                   You’ll both recognize this from President Uchtdorf. He says, “We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and his children. God is our father. We are his children. We are all brothers and sisters. I don’t know exactly how to articulate this point of not judging others with sufficient eloquence, passion, and persuasion to make it stick. I can quote scripture, I can try to expound doctrine, and I will even quote a bumper sticker I recently saw. It was attached to the back of a car whose driver appeared to be a little rough around the edges, but the words on the sticker taught an insightful lesson. It read, don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.” And Geoff, I think that’s what you’re talking about. The spirit of God came upon him. That’s great.

                                           00:55                   And the child does it best, honestly. I remember one Christmas Eve, my son, Mason, he’s on a mission now. My son, Mason, we were just taking the train. We went up to see the lights, I think, in Salt Lake and we were going to bring him back down. We were going to take the train back here to Utah County and as we’re waiting for the train, there’s this gruff looking guy over there by himself. It’s late on Christmas Eve. And of course, I thought, I don’t know what’s going on over there. I was chatting with my wife and she pointed. She said, look, and there’s my four-year-old boy walking over. Hi. He says, hi, bud. He says, It’s Christmas. I know. He said, what do you want for Christmas? You know, I walked over, Mason, what do you… And he said, no, no. It’s nice to have someone to talk to. I love that your son did that same thing. He didn’t say anything wrong.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            01:49                   My wife’s grandmother, unbelievable lady, Virginia. She joined the church later in life. I think she was in her 80s. She was baptized. When she was baptized, she moved from Toronto to Salt Lake, her and her husband, who also joined the church. They bought an apartment across the street from the temple, Salt Lake Temple. We’d go up and visit her quite often and every time we would visit her, she’d like to go walk the temple ground, so we’d go down. There was often panhandlers and she had this purse that she would fill up with coins. And every time we went over there, she would empty out her coins to these people. And I told her, I said, hey, you know, Virginia, they probably don’t need it. You don’t know how they’re going to spend it. They’re fine. There was some article on the news that said they make a lot of money anyways. So I was trying to explain this all to her.

                                           02:38                   I remember her looking at me and she said, who are you to judge? I was really taken back and I was taught that lesson from my son with Brian and now from my grandmother-in-law that she was absolutely right. Why not show love? What does it hurt to show love? In all times, in all places to all people, I love that. It was a great lesson.

Hank Smith:                      03:03                    You’re getting it from below and above, Geoff. You’re like, Lord, I’m learning. I promise you don’t need to…

Dr. Geoff Wright:            03:11                   Yeah, I know.

Hank Smith:                      03:12                   Yeah.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            03:12                   I’m slow. I’m slow to learn.

Hank Smith:                      03:14                   Yeah, keep sending these teachers.

John Bytheway:               03:16                   Those two phrases turned into another man and God gave him another heart. What I like about it, is it doesn’t just sound like a slight upgrade. It’s, I can actually, I can make you a whole different person. I was looking but I failed to find it. Doesn’t Paul talk about becoming a new creature. It’s not just a little bit better, but it’s like going from caterpillar to butterfly. I’m going to make you completely new and if the creator can create you in the first place, he can create you again differently, which is kind of amazing to think about. Maybe he’ll create you under heat and pressure too, which I love that idea.

Hank Smith:                      03:58                   Thanks, John. Geoff, let’s keep going. What’s our next chapter? We’re, we don’t hit every chapter in first Samuel. If we did, we’d be here a long time.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            04:06                   We’re into chapter 13. This is kind of Saul’s first major failure as a king where he kind of reveals his impatience and lack of trust in God. So he had received this new heart, he had changed and now he has this impatience. He gets caught up a little bit in his leadership role. Maybe some pride starts seeping in. He has this war and he asked his son to go lead Israel and the situation looks pretty overwhelming and there’s some fear and Israel starts panicking and they start hiding in caves and wells and rocks, it says. Some even escape across the Jordan River. People are losing courage when things are getting hard. I think there’s some parallels to our lives, of course, with that. Then I think it really gets interesting here. So Saul gets impatient. Samuel says, hey, so I’ll wait seven days and then I’ll be there and we’ll have the appropriate sacrifice. But Saul kind of panics because troops are running off.

                                           05:05                   He’s like, okay, well, why don’t I just do it? What difference does it make if I don’t have the authority? I’m not the prophet. That’s okay. I know how to do it. I’ve seen it done a million times. Saul chooses to control the situation rather than be obedient. Then we read a key verse in 13 to 14. “Thou hast done foolishly a foolish thing. Thou hast not kept the commandment of the Lord, my God, which he commanded thee.” And he gives that warning, “Now, thy kingdom shall not continue.” It’s so interesting that he calls him out and he said, hey, you didn’t listen to me. This reminds me of a silly story. In Vancouver it rains a lot. I loved basketball growing up. We had a pretty tall garage and my dad put a basketball hoop up in the garage. But because it rains, he also put down carpet to kind of absorb the water dripping off the cars when you pull in.

                                           06:00                   And my job was to keep the garage clean, sweep it up. I was just a kid and I was pretty lazy or thought of I knew a better way. Here’s the broom. Here’s the dust pan. Sweep it up, put it in the garbage can. Instead, I just did what the cartoons taught me. I’d lift up the carpet and sweep it under the carpet. I just kept doing that week after week after week.

Hank Smith:                      06:23                   And it’s great. It’s-

Dr. Geoff Wright:            06:24                   Yeah, I mean, you don’t see it’s out of sight, out of mind. But little mounds started forming. So this is my analogy of this mound of on my basketball court made my dribbling really good or bad. It depends how you look at it. But what’s interesting is I know my dad saw the mound. He saw it getting bigger and bigger. He also knew that I knew where to put the dirt, but I didn’t do it. And so it’s an interesting thing and eventually I came inside and my dad’s like, why aren’t you playing basketball? And I said, the floor isn’t flat. I made the floor not flat. Thou hast done a foolish thing. I was the fool. And he said, oh, that’s interesting. Why do you think that’s the case? Maybe you should go fix that. He knew, but he let it play out and then I had to go fix the error that I made.

                                           07:17                   This is another perfect example. Saul did something foolish. God said, hey, you did something foolish. Could he have changed, right? Could have this been a pivotal moment to change, to repentance. And he chose the latter, you know, he did not choose to repent at this moment right away.

Hank Smith:                      07:36                   You know what’s interesting about this too is Saul says, what have you done? And immediately goes to, it was them. I saw the people were scattered from me and the Philistines. It was them and I forced myself or I had no other choice than to make this foolish decision. And I’ve done that same thing countless times in my life. Why’d you do that? Well, it was someone else’s fault. It was them. I had no choice. Samuel says, oh, you have done foolishly. My wife frequently uses this when teaching our kids, she says, don’t defend a poor decision. If it’s a poor decision, it’s a poor decision. Let’s admit it and move forward because it’s same way I think my children take after their father, which is, it wasn’t my fault.

John Bytheway:               08:26                   These kind of stories scare me because it sounds like he’s trying to do the right thing. He just did the right thing the wrong way, you know?

Hank Smith:                      08:34                   Geoff, I love your story. Your dad’s going, man, this is… I’m going to let these consequences play out. Because he could’ve stepped in. What are you doing?

Dr. Geoff Wright:            08:44                   And I was like Saul, I blamed it on the floor. I was like, yeah, the floor is just not level, you know? I don’t- It’s not my fault. He let it play out, you know?

Hank Smith:                      08:55                   And that’s a perfect analogy for life. We think, I’m fine. Look at this. It’s working out. They told me that this wouldn’t work out. Look, it’s working out just fine. Until it doesn’t.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            09:06                   Yeah, I think it’s interesting in that verse 12, it’s almost like he did two things wrong. He didn’t follow God’s counsel and he knew it. It’s one thing to be disobedient but to know that you’re being disobedient. That’s what puts him over the edge. That’s why he starts blaming others, right? He tries to defer.

Hank Smith:                      09:25                   My kids do it all the time. It was not me. It was not my fault. I was going to bring up the parable of the talents where the guy, you know, doesn’t do anything with the talent and he blames the Lord. Does he blame Samuel? He says, you didn’t show up. I started without you, so I did nothing. I knew you were a hard grader so I didn’t do any homework.

John Bytheway:               09:47                   You’ve already mentioned President Uchtdorf, but I think in his talk about being off course by a small degree about that, he said the prophet Samuel recognized a critical weakness in Saul’s character. When pressured by outside influences, Saul did not have the self-discipline to stay on course, trust the Lord and his prophets and follow the pattern God had established. Saul’s failure to hold fast to the council of the prophet just a little longer may seem minor, but even small errors over time can make a dramatic difference in our lives. Man, I worry about trying to do the right thing and going a little bit off.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            10:27                   What’s interesting I think there is he gives an anecdote. He says, because Samuel calls the people together and then he thus says the Lord, thy God, I’m just reading out of here. I brought Israel out of Egypt. I delivered you from the hand of the Egypt. So he goes down this line of examples like, I’ve done it before. Why don’t you trust me? That’s another call to remember. We’ve had so many miracles in our lives and all through the scriptures they have these examples yet people still have a hard time trusting. We talk about if someone leaves the church or, you know, loses faith or whatever, they let go of the rod. The reason they let go is they’ve forgotten something. They forgot the miracles. We had a missionary reporting last year from their mission and I loved what they said they did on their mission.

                                           11:22                   They talked about a miracle journal and they said, I wasn’t very good at journaling, but I ended up writing almost every day the miracles I saw. And I thought, that is so brilliant to identify those miracles that happen. And then I think the next step, which this missionary said that he was going to do is, I want to use this. I want to keep this the rest of my life where I can reflect on seeing God’s hand in my life. Because as we do that, I think it’s easier to have trust, to have confidence, to face the battles that come, just like the Philistines where the Israelites are battling them and they could have said, well, God’s delivered us before. Let’s have some faith.

Hank Smith:                      12:06                   Yeah, let’s move forward. John, I was really touched a few weeks back. I’ve been thinking about it ever since you said it. You have a feel journal. Hit that one more time for those who weren’t listening.

John Bytheway:               12:18                   Yeah, it’s a Google Doc so that I can access it wherever I have wifi. The feel is an acronym for feelings, experiences, evidences, and logic or reason. I was going to call it just reason, but that would’ve spelled fear. So, so it’s logic or reason. Sometimes you have an exalted or a wonderful or powerful feeling to boy, record it. Sometimes it’s an experience that happens over years or months. Record it. Sometimes it’s an evidence you learn about as we often do in the scriptures that are fun or other evidences and sometimes there’s things that just make sense. I mean, think of how, how much sense it makes. Love God and love your neighbor. Imagine that world.

                                           13:04                   I want to live there where everybody loves God and loves the neighbors. As Geoff just reminded us, that’s a great idea. The miracle journal President Eyring, I think it was, said a journal is to document the hand of the Lord in your life. That’s what a miracle journal is. Then do what King Benjamin said, keep it before your eyes so that you don’t forget. You remind yourself of, wait, the Lord’s been with us before so many times he’ll be with us again. And it’s exactly what you were talking about, Geoff.

Hank Smith:                      13:35                   I have to do a little shout out here to my student. Her name’s Ellie Johnson. I had a, this conversation with her just today. She said, you know, on the 4,000th time you’ve told me to have a record of my experiences with God. She said, I finally decided to do it. Takes me a while to learn. She said, Brother Smith, it’s only been, you know, a couple of weeks and I have 150 of these. And they’re not long entries. They’re a couple sentences. She looked at me and she said, God is so good to me. And I said, Ellie, and when you take him seriously, he’s going to give you more. When you write them down, it’s something he teaches often. Be faithful over a few things. I will give you many things. She just bore testimony to me of something I finally convinced her to do. It was fantastic. The way she looked at me and she had tears in her eyes, God is so good to me. That is a life-changing, small and simple thing.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            14:37                   I agree. Well, should we move on?

Hank Smith:                      14:41                   Let’s keep going. Where do we go next?

Dr. Geoff Wright:            14:43                   Let’s go to chapter 15, if you don’t mind.

Hank Smith:                      14:46                   You’re hurting my heart here. I like Saul.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            14:50                   I know.

Hank Smith:                      14:50                   Don’t do this.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            14:52                   Yeah, this is his biggest act of disobedience to this moment and it’s sad because this is the moment that God rejects him as king. Even though God tells Saul to completely destroy the Amalekites, he disobeys. This is kind of a clear test of obedience and he failed it. What’s interesting is he tried to pass it off that he was doing it for the right reasons and then we get to that key verse in 22. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” This is serious consequences in his life, this rejection that happens. When we were first married, we were living in California, as I mentioned. It was our first year there and it was, it was tithing declaration time. We go in and we didn’t have kids at the time. We were both working. We were the richest we’ve ever been, but we were saving for our future.

                                           15:47                   And we went in with the bishop, he said, are you full tithe payers? And we said, yes, we’re full tithe payers. We were happy to say that. He followed up with an interesting question. We said, okay, well, are you fully consecrated in all your financial offerings? And I was taken off guard by that. We kind of looked at each other and we said, yeah, I think, I think we are. Yes. We’ll answer yes. The answer’s yes. And then he said, I don’t think you are. I was like, wait, who’s this guy calling me out? How does he know? I said, oh, okay, thanks. And we left. We went home and I had a hard heart. I became like Saul and I said to Leah, who’s that guy that he could tell us that we’re not fully consecrated? I mean, pay my tithing, paying some fast offerings. And she didn’t say anything at first, which was good for her.

                                           16:51                   And then kind of the next day she noticed I was still kind of bugged, a little stewing on it. And then she said something that was pretty powerful to me and she said, you know when you asked, who’s this guy? And I said, yeah. She said, guess what? He’s your bishop. He’s our bishop. He has some insight that we don’t have. Whoa, okay. Now I’m being taught by the bishop and my wife thought about it and then it was interesting. I came across a quote by President Maxwell and I don’t have it in front of me. I said, I’m not going to quote exactly, but the idea is you consecrate until it hurts. He was telling it at the end of his life, he was dealing with cancer or something and I was thinking about that and I was like, what does that mean? I don’t think it means to have pain, but it means to sacrifice and to consecrate, to give, to build the kingdom of God however you can where you recognize that you’re giving. It’s just, you’re not just writing a check or like we used to do. So that next month we used to fill out, you know, tithing envelopes and put your fast offerings and so forth in it.

                                           17:56                   My wife reminded me, she said, hey, our bishop represents the Lord. We need to consecrate. And that was a great call to grow, to change. Here we have this idea to obey is better than sacrifice. It’s not just writing the check, right? Anybody could sacrifice some money, but obedience to a church leader, I’m not saying blindly follow, but recognize that, you know, in this case, this bishop was receiving some inspiration and we were a young couple and we were both working and sure we were saving for our future, but we needed to learn that lesson early in our marriage that really the law of consecration that we had covenanted to make we need to live more fully and I think that was the invitation.

Hank Smith:                      18:46                   Yeah. Wow. I don’t, I would’ve responded the same way. Wait, what? Saul does react that way. He’s defensive. He’s, well, here’s all the reasons. Yeah, the people did this. So did it work out, Geoff? Has the, what’s happened since then? I mean, obviously you still remember.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            19:11                   Yeah, it was a great lesson and I think here’s the deal. We make covenants. As a kid, some Disney movie probably taught us a promise is a promise or whatever. I put my arm to the square if you want to use that as a symbol and I’m all in. I’ve had too many moments in my life that I can’t deny God’s divine hand. I’m all in. I know men are not perfect, our leaders or whoever, but that’s not the point. The point is I made a covenant. Turns out that the other side of the covenant, we have so much to gain. God has promised us so much that it’s a privilege to be all in. Some people look at Pascal’s Wager as like the algorithm for justifying being in the church or to making a commitment to something because you get more out of it.

                                           20:06                   But the truth is, like, internally I am a, I hope that I am a better man, a better husband, a better disciple because of my commitments and my covenants. I know my family’s been blessed. I look at all the people that have invested in my kids’ lives, teaching them good principles and to be responsible and kind and being Christian, why wouldn’t I be all in? The church is beautifully designed. It teaches us the gospel better than anywhere else. To have these promises that come out of covenants, I love it. I’m grateful for it and I testify that it’s changed me and that it’s true.

Hank Smith:                      20:49                   That’s beautiful. I love that story. Yeah. I love the direction that it went. Who is that man? Who does he think he is? I love it, Leah. That’s our bishop.

John Bytheway:               21:00                   He thinks he’s the bishop.

Hank Smith:                      21:05                   In the manual, it says in 1 Samuel 15, you’ll read about a commandment from the Lord that Saul did not obey because he thought he had a good reason. To learn from Saul’s choices, look at verse 22 and replace the words sacrifice and fat of rams with things that seem good but are not as important as hearing and obeying the Lord. That to me would be an excellent exercise. Samuel said, “Hath the Lord as great delight in…” and then fill in all the things we’d rather do than be obedient. Delight in, fill in the blank, “as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than…” And then you put those back in there. That’s a great little replacement application of verse 22. It cuts me to the heart because I do this same thing where I think, well, I’m not going to be obedient, but there’s a good reason I’m not obedient, but here’s my justification. Verse 22 says, I don’t know if the Lord delights in that as much as he just delights in obedience. I’m going to go to the mountains on Sunday. I can feel the Spirit more than going to church. And has the Lord a great delight in going to the mountains? As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold to obey is better than going to the mountains.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            22:27                   We know about the pioneers, all the things they were depositing along the way. They thought it was important. They thought they would need it, but really in the end, they didn’t. Eventually, they were pulling hand carts and they couldn’t take what wagons were taking and they only had their essentials. A lot of times when it comes down to obedience, it is like the essentials. What are these big ticket things that… Well, you look at your temple covenants. You’ve made five covenants in there. Maybe some of these procedure things don’t matter as much, but those things that you covenanted to in the temple are really what make a big difference. To John’s point is you’re all in or you’re not. Are you jumping in the pool or you just dipping your toe? I don’t know. There is some stuff that I really like. Well, it’s not going to work out in the end. You got to be all in.

Hank Smith:                      23:19                   I remember Elder Hales saying, stand in holy places, it’s both feet. I like to say, burn the boats behind you. I’m here.

John Bytheway:               23:28                   Stay by the tree of life and don’t go spend the weekend in the great and spacious and come back with that Elder Maxwell talked about weekend trips to Babylon or something.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            23:38                   Samuel does the same thing. Eventually, Samuel basically comes out and says to Saul, hey, stop it. Stop the lying. You are disobedient. That’s enough. Don’t compound it by placing blame or trying to justify. And I think sometimes we do have to be bold. I am appreciative as much as I hate it when someone calls me out and says, you know, like, that’s not the right way to do it. It’s important that we are bold and so, and remind people, you made a promise. Let’s do what we were asked to do.

Hank Smith:                      24:10                   There is a love coming from Samuel to Saul. I’m telling you this, I love you. I’m going to show you where the lines are, and you can tell that Samuel loves Saul. He’s invested in him.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            24:24                   He’s invested, yeah, that’s a huge point. And I think God is too. God says, I regret. He uses the word regret. And then in this translation that I’ve been studying from a synonym that’s placed in there is, I’m sad. I’m sad what happened to Saul. And I love that we learn that kind of compassion out of the scriptures. I’m sad. This is really too bad what happened. When we’re disobedient, yeah, I think God is sad. With our children, man, I wish they didn’t make that choice. That really makes me sad. It doesn’t say that God stops loving, but he is disappointed.

Hank Smith:                      25:02                   Verse 35 is pretty touching. Samuel came no more to see Saul. Until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Samuel mourned for Saul.

John Bytheway:               25:12                   I love that. Yeah. So am I correct in thinking Samuel’s kind of like the prophet. Saul is the political leader, the king. But they interact a lot. It’s kind of like Alma and Mosiah. Mosiah is King Mosiah. Alma is over the church and that it’s that kind of relationship where they talk and consult.

Hank Smith:                      25:34                   Yeah. Sounds like Samuel’s been a mentor to Saul. He truly wants to see him succeed.

John Bytheway:               25:39                   And it mourn, he mourns when things go wrong. Yeah.

Hank Smith:                      25:44                   It’s hard to see that. Geoff, you talked about that young man earlier. It sounds like I’m worried about him. I think Samuel would probably say the same thing. I’m worried about Saul.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            25:54                   That is a nice transition to the next chapter because he had a hard time moving on from Saul a little bit. God directs him and says, okay, it’s time to choose a new king. Oh, boy. I invested a lot in Saul and it, it just didn’t turn out in the end. Are you sure we should do this? Should we not go back to judges or something? You know, maybe he had these kind of conflicts, but then he had to follow the promptings again. That’s an interesting moment in his life and we don’t know exactly if there was years or months or what, but we do know that David goes in tutelage. Should we go into chapter 16 then?

Hank Smith:                      26:30                   Yeah, let’s do it. You know, I focus so much on Saul, David and Solomon that you forget. Samuel was watching all this going, oh, and the Lord saying, I told you so. I told you kings were not a good idea. I wish you would’ve listened.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            26:46                   Well, we get to chapter 16, God chooses and prepares people based on their heart, not their outward appearance. Right away in verse seven, for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart. God sends Samuel to Bethlehem. He says, hey, stop mourning about Saul. It’s time to move on. And so he sends him to Jesse’s family to anoint a new king. Jesse lines up his sons, gets the seven in there. David’s out with the sheep. God rejects the older son saying, no, that’s not the right one, even though the first was big and strong, kind of looking like Saul maybe, God’s looking for the character. He really values character and not the parents. Then eventually the youngest son comes in after tending the sheep and God tells Samuel, yeah, this is the one. So Samuel anoints David.

                                           27:41                   God chooses someone unexpected and often overlooked. Going back to that kind of intro, that question I asked you guys, what’s important is he equips the people that he chooses and we know that scripture in Doctrine and Covenants. Eventually, you know, David enters Saul’s service. This is just such a beautiful reminder of the two great commandments for me. We all know the first great commandment, love God. And then the second great commandment, I heard another translation of it and I really love this. We’ve been taught, second great commandment, love your neighbor as you love yourself, basically. But this other way I was taught it was love your neighbor as God loves them and/or as God sees them. That really changed the second great commandment. It’s an invitation to look at people as God sees them, as God loves them. For me, it just changed my interactions with people, especially teaching, like a student comes in and you try and see them as God does echoing back to that first question I asked at the beginning.

                                           28:50                   One of my favorite types of movies that I had to be converted to are when kids overpower adults. So if you think about it, there’s lots of examples, Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Percy Jackson. The adults are bigger, yet the kids perform in an unbelievable way. This happened in my own life. My son Isaac, he’s my oldest, he was born on Christmas day, December 25th. That’s not the most exciting day to be born on perhaps, and so we changed his birthday to January 25th. We celebrate in January. And so a tradition that we had is from an early age, I would take him into the back country in the winter and we’d build a snow cave and we’d sleep in it. We did this from a young age and it just became something that we both loved to do at the end of January. We had done it for a couple years and then when he was 11 turning 12, we decided to go up and do it again as tradition would hold.

                                           29:53                   And it was a gray year. It was a year of tons of snow. And so he came home from school and he had drawn up a plan of what the snowcave should look like and it was going to have a seat and benches and cup holders and it was just going to be this great, great snow cave. And I looked at it, I’m like, yeah, let’s build it. This is going to be amazing. We would go up in the evening, we’d get dinner together first, then we’d go in snowshoes and with sleds pulling gear and we’d go up behind Brighton into the back country. My wife knew kinda where we were going but not the precise location necessarily. We were hiking in and the snow was deep. Even with snow shoes we’re sinking in pretty deep in our snow boots. So eventually we get to a location that we thought would be good and we start piling snow.

                                           30:44                   He’s 11 turning 12. I’m shoveling and just piling snow. And what you do, you pile it high, 10 feet in there and then you get on top of it, you stamp it down, you pile it again, you pile it again. We piled until maybe about 10 o’clock at night, maybe nine. It’s time to start digging. And so how we would do it is we would both start tunneling in from opposite sides to expedite the clearing out process. I’m digging through and the Spirit comes to me and it says, don’t do this. I was like, don’t do this? We’ve been doing this for years and I love doing this. I’m doing this. So I keep digging. The Spirit says clearly to me. And I don’t feel the Spirit strongly like this hardly ever. It says, “Don’t do this.” And I thought, okay, well, maybe this is just me being a dad, being a little paranoid. I call Isaac over and I’m like, Isaac, hey, do you remember the rules when we’re building? And he’s like, yeah, dad, never two people in the snow cave at one time while we’re building to be sure it’s safe.

                                           32:00                   If something happens cover your face to get a pocket of air, those types of things. I’m like, okay, cool. I feel better. All right, let’s finish this up. So we keep digging and what’s happening is the snow is settling. It was so much powder and it wasn’t compacted. We didn’t give it good rest time. We weren’t going to be able to build the Shangri-La of snowcaves, right? It’s going to more be a tunnel this year. And so I told him, I’m like, hey, buddy, we’re just going to have to do a tunnel. Let’s block up your sides. We block up his side and so it’s time for me to go in and just kind of verify. And so I go in, what you do, you take your glove and you smooth the ceiling so it doesn’t have drip points. I’m in there, he’s outside the cave and I’m smoothing out to get the drip points.

                                           32:49                   All of a sudden the whole thing collapses on me and it hits my hand to my face and my other arm is pinned behind my back. It collapses my lungs and breaks these ribs and I am immobilized. It was like being stuck in cement. The only thing I could move were these fingers right by my eye and nose. So I pulled the snow out of my eye and out of my nose and that’s all I could move. I could just barely move my fingers. Immediately I was trying to breathe. I couldn’t breathe because I’m compressed by this, this 12 feet of snow that we had packed down and I thought, okay, I’m in trouble. So immediately I started saying a prayer in my head and I said, “God, send Isaac to the road.” He’s 11 and 12 and I was thinking, okay, we hiked in about a mile. If he sprints through the snow, he could probably get to the road in 15 minutes, flag someone down coming up late, 15 minutes and then 15 minutes back, that’s 45 minutes. I had about this much of air if I breathe, if I kind of relax myself, I should be able to survive. God send him to the road.

                                           34:14                   I don’t know how long it was, but after a few minutes, two little hands burrowed and hit me right in the face. He clears some snow out of my eyes and out of my mouth. He’s screaming, Dad! You found me. I’m like, can you get this arm out? Can you pull my arm out? He pulls my arm out and I’m like, Isaac, careful, don’t collapse this on both of us. So he pulls my arm and he just slowly pulls me, rescues me, saves my life by pulling me out of a tunnel that he burrowed. He didn’t burrow above me to the left or to the right or below. He burrowed right to my face. He pulls me out of this cave. We embrace, I fall on my knees, together we say a prayer thanking God. And I tell you this story for several reasons.

                                           35:28                   There’s on obvious one there, but we were just about to go to sleep in this what would have been a tomb. If you’ve ever slept in a snow cave, you’re in a mummy bag, your hands are inside the mummy bag and you’re looking up at the ceiling. That cave was coming down no matter what. We would have both been entombed and the worst nightmare would be suffocating knowing your son was suffocating next to you. So first lesson is I didn’t listen to the Spirit, but God still prevailed. I didn’t listen, but God has a plan. It was fine for it to happen to me knowing that my son could still rescue me. That’s an important lesson that I needed to learn. Lesson number two, how in the world did a 11 year old boy who is small of stature at the time, how could he dig right to my face?

                                           36:31                   How could he make a tunnel? My thought was go to the road, get an adult to come rescue me. God’s thought was this boy. So the third thing is sometimes we wonder how the atonement or how miracles work. Why, you know, in this story, why didn’t the cave collapse on him? How did he know where to go? Our natural eyes will pick the bigger person not realizing God has angels that buoy up these younger people that might not look like they can do it. The angels guided him that day to find me to rescue me. The story’s not about me. I’m not trying to say that, but there are three really powerful lessons where God looks at the heart. This is one of those stories where it testifies to me that God is aware of us. He loves us. His plan is perfect. The youth of our day are capable.

                                           37:37                   They can do this. They were saved. I firmly believe they can manage the temptation, the hardship of this life and do it with even a smile because the end of the story is also beautiful. We didn’t go home that night. I asked my son, what do you want to do? He said, well, we’re here. Why would we leave? We went and found another place to camp and we stayed. He wasn’t shook up by it and I think these youth can do it. They can face the temptations of this world and do it with confidence knowing that God has picked them and saved them just as he picked and saved David to rescue the Israelites from a king who had made some mistakes. And I love that. I love David being young and overlooked, but being the one who brought salvation initially to Israel.

Hank Smith:                      38:37                   That’s an incredible moment and what a lesson. The fact that you thought he needs to go find someone who can actually do this. Here Samuel’s looking for this next king and he’s like, well, that’s got to be my guy. And the Lord says, no, that’s not him. How could you refuse him? Look, he’s… Look how great he looks. That’s not my guy. And to have these little 11-year-old hands.

John Bytheway:               39:05                   Hands that were guided to know right where you needed to breathe. But I love your testimony of that, that the Lord knows exactly the world he sent these young people to. He knows it’s a lot different than my 1970s world as a teenager. They can do it. I love the testimony of that because I believe it too. They’re different. I think they can do it. I know they were saying all that stuff to us, but I look at this generation and I go, no, they’re different.

Hank Smith:                      39:35                   John, a few years ago, you did a talk on let no man despise thy youth. You taught me what that verse means.

John Bytheway:               39:45                   Yeah. I thought King James English better be careful when you’re young because people might remember all the stuff you did. Then I read some different translations as Geoff has done today and it was not that it was more like, don’t let others look down on you because of your age. Which is a totally different message. It was don’t worry about your age, worry about your calling, worry about your duty, you can do it. When Paul says that to Timothy, you can do this. Don’t let people look at your youthfulness. That doesn’t disqualify you because I’ve got you.

Hank Smith:                      40:22                   Yeah, this is a different translation, same verse. 1 Timothy 4:12, different translation. And I just think of Geoff’s story here. You are young, but don’t let anyone treat you as if you are not important. Be an example to show the believers how they should live. Show them by what you say, by the way you live, by your love, by your faith and by your pure life. Can you imagine Isaac outside that snow cave saying, What do I do? What do I do? I got to do this. The Lord is guiding me. And our youth have that, that power in them. And we can treat them that way. You know what to do. You know how to follow the Spirit. You can do this. Man, Geoff, that is beautiful. I got to breathe here for a second. I got to… I was holding my breath as I’m listening. And of course he’s like, oh, I can’t think of any reason to go home. Well, I’ve got a couple broken ribs that could probably use a going home. How old’s Isaac now?

Dr. Geoff Wright:            41:27                   Yeah, he’s home from a mission and married and he’s got a wonderful wife and Madelyn and they’re both doing well. She’s a nurse and he’s at school. He is, gone quick though. He’s 21 and already moved on through all that stuff.

Hank Smith:                      41:42                   Geoff, I’ve known you a long time. Always been very impressed with you, your intelligence, your attitude, your kindness, and your willingness to serve. Here you are PhD working at BYU. You’ve been to some good schools, you’ve gotten a few degrees and you know your way around and you can make your own snow skis. I think our listeners would be interested in why do you believe?

Dr. Geoff Wright:            42:12                   Yeah, I love that question, Hank. Hopefully through this kind of discussion we’ve shared today, you feel a litle bit of my testimony and the burning in my heart. Why do I believe? A couple students a few years ago inevitably because they’re at that age and dating. They want to know how’d you know that your wife was the one? And I thought about that and I said, well, I loved her. Well, how, but how’d you know? Some people have a list. My list was, okay, well, she needs to like the outdoors because I love the outdoors. I love blackberry pies, that’d be cool if she could make a blackberry pie. You know, you need to be attracted to them, carry a conversation, but, but how’d you know? Like those are checklist things they would ask me. It’s eventually it comes down to this. It’s something that I feel.

                                           43:03                   And when you talk about the gospel, how do you know? You could logic yourself into the church, you could logic yourself out of the church, but ultimately what it comes down to is what do you feel? I feel and I’ve felt for a long time that the gospel of Jesus Christ, that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is true. And I could logic it by saying, well, it doesn’t teach me anything inappropriate, but it’s beyond that. It’s something that I feel. I remember I had a buddy one time that said, I can’t believe you have faith to believe. That’s crazy. There’s a God? There’s an afterlife? Like, how do you know? Like that’s, that’s unbelievable, that you have that kind of faith. And I said, actually, I think it’s more unbelievable that you don’t believe. In fact, this is what I said to him, you have more faith than I do.

                                           43:55                   Your faith is unbelievable. You believe that no one is in charge, that we’re here by chance, that everything is by accident. That’s crazy faith to me. I have faith that there’s purpose, that there’s reason, that there’s harmony. It seems like I have less faith than you. And he looked at me and he smiled and he said, that’s interesting. Your question, Hank, is why do I believe? Well, it’s something I feel. I just have gratitude to have this knowledge that we have a loving heavenly Father who sent his son. We have a Savior and why is that all in place? Because he wants us back, that we’re here to become more like him and that we’re preparing for this amazing chapter to our life with him, with our families, with all these friends. Life is about experiences and growth and making friends and that excites me. I’m grateful for that perspective. Without the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I wouldn’t have that perspective and that faith. I only have gratitude. Why do I believe? Because I feel it, I know it, and it’s amazing.

Hank Smith:                      45:15                   Thanks, Geoff. Your stories today have been moving.

John Bytheway:               45:21                   I remember the movie called The Rookie, where is it Dennis Quaid says to a, you know what we get to do today? We get to play baseball. I love that. Hank, you know what we get to do today? We get to talk about the gospel. I can’t believe we get to do this.

Hank Smith:                      45:39                   Yeah, me too.

John Bytheway:               45:41                   It’s so fun.

Hank Smith:                      45:43                   I know, Geoff, what you’re talking about with feeling, because I felt it often doing this show where I’m in the scriptures, I’m with people I love and I’m learning. That feeling, I don’t want it to end. It’s uplifting, it’s powerful. We hope our listeners feel that same way. You know, at the end of an episode like this, they think, wow, that was good. That was delicious to me. Geoff, thank you for your time and please thank Leah. And please, will you thank Isaac on behalf of all of our listeners that we have Geoff here?

John Bytheway:               46:18                   If I ever go snow camping, I’m inviting Isaac.

Hank Smith:                      46:23                   Yeah. That moment of those two little hands.

John Bytheway:               46:26                   Beautiful. Powerful.

Hank Smith:                      46:28                   Yeah, it’s very powerful.

Dr. Geoff Wright:            46:29                   Thank you for inviting me. I was apprehensive, you know, because I’m a nobody. What do I know? But to reflect on one’s testimony and interestingly, I didn’t know you could feel the Spirit during a podcast. What you’re doing is meaningful. I don’t think I fully appreciated that until this opportunity. It’s just great to immerse ourselves in the gospel. Thank you.

Hank Smith:                      46:51                   It is. Well, with that, we want to thank Dr. Geoff Wright for spending his time with us today. We want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors, David and Verla Sorensen. And every episode we remember our founder, Steve Sorensen. He would have loved this. I’m sure he does. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re going to continue the story of the Kings on followHIM. As a thank you to our wonderful listeners, we’d love to gift you the digital version of our book, Finding Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It offers short, meaningful insights drawn from our past Old Testament episodes. Visit followhim.co, that’s followhim.co to download your free copy today and you’ll also find the link to purchase the print edition.

                                                                        Thank you for being part of our followHIM family. Of course, none of this could happen without our incredible production crew. David Perry, Lisa Spice, Will Stoughton, Krystal Roberts, Ariel Cuadra, Heather Barlow, Amelia Kabwika, Sydney Smith, and Annabelle Sorensen.